Yes, you assert they are dumb. Somehow I am not convinced by the strong argument that some guy on the internet says they’re dumb.
This isn’t really about whether or not Faux is biased. Of course MSNBC is biased. Thery’re on the left. It is an obvious thing. This thread is more about how Faux lies outright, which is bad. All that bad, really. I am not judging you by your join date, it’s just something I noticed. What I’m getting at is that you may not have read this thread in its entirety, which I encourage.
FFRF and similar groups don’t go looking for incidents. They only intervene if a local asks them to.
Okay if you want to be pedantic, then no off the top of my head I can’t think of any specific cases of AA or ACLU going after “Christmas plays” specifically.
Nevertheless, I think it’s fair to say that a group bored enough to spend their time putting up billboards with no constructive intent other than basically just to “troll” Christians, Jews, Muslims, etc does confirm a silly hangup with other people celebrating Christmas in their own privacy. No one’s holding a gun to any atheist’s head and forcing them to go to church on Christmas, get real - they’re free to stay home and watch NBA like plenty of people do as it is.
I don’t care whether it qualifies as a “war” on Christmas or not, that’s just arguing over stupid words and means nothing.
Ever heard of Dredd Scott vs Sanford?
Dred Scott v. Sandford
The debate isn’t that government “should” promote a religion, the debate is more along the lines of whether or not allowing a student to display a Christmas card on a desk in public school = “promoting religion”, or whether it’s just a case of someone being too easily offended.
Um, no that would be stupid and laughed out of court.
Though based on the billboards they seem to be hung-up with Christians and other religions privately attending church services.
Pointed out above that it was once ruled “Constitutional” to own and sell slaves.
So calling something “constitutional” or “unconstitutional” means nothing unless you’re gonna tell us what you believe the correct interpretation of the constitution should be, since I’m going to assume you don’t believe it’s constitutional to own slaves and therefore would’ve considered the Dredd Scott vs Sanford interpretation incorrect.
Since if you claim whatever any court rules is constitutional is automatically “correct” then the constitution is completely meaningless, and you would have to support Dredd Scott vs Sanford simply because they “won” the case.
So what is the difference to you between atheists putting up billboards promoting atheism and Christians putting up billboards promoting Christianity? Because I’ve seen a lot more of the latter than the former in my lifetime.
Dred Scott was decided prior to the passage of the Civil War Amendments, which prohibited slavery and gave black Americans citizenship. At the time, Dred Scott was decided perfectly legitimately according to the Constitution as it stood at the time. It was despicable, but it was constitutional.
Do you have a cite for this claim? Because this cite doesn’t say what you say it says. Not by a long shot.
So you’d support it then if hypothetically, tomorrow the states voted to reinstate slavery and it was approved by the courts as constitutional?
Basically you’ll go along with anything no matter how despicable, so long as it’s “constitutional” or the arbitrarily-decided law at any given time?
So had you been born in 1941, you’d have cooperated with the Gestapo and helped them round up Jews simply because the NSDAP who happened to be “in charge” at the time told you to?
This doesn’t not follow logically in the least from the post you responded to. He never said he supported Dred Scott.
He more or less said he’d support whatever is declared “constitutional” at any given time.
He (or she or they) did nothing of the sort. I recommend you only respond to the actual words and statements people post, rather than your inference of what they might mean.
This is a gross mischaracterization of jayjay’s post, which contained no reference to supporting or opposing anything.
Jeebus Christmas, I LIVE right now for this thread to head to the Pit…
I did not and I would ask you to please stop lying about what I meant, since you apparently have no idea how to read my posts with comprehension. I said that it was decided correctly according to the Constitution at that time. I also said it was despicable, which you apparently missed completely.
Imagine that you live in a community where everyone believes in God. Where every person you know believes in god, and you don’t know a single person who thinks differently. You can’t even really imagine that there could be people who don’t believe in god. Informing those people that there are options beyond “believe in God” absolutely is constructive intent. Remember, many atheists see Christianity, Islam, and Judaism as a problem, so informing people that there are other options, that there are other people who legitimately don’t believe in God, is a public good.
Well, imagine if the society you lived in focused entirely on hindu iconography. That the whole country ground to a standstill every time there was a major hindu holiday, that you could see displays of Shiva and Vishnu in courtrooms (despite court orders to take them down, and despite their obvious brutality and lack of relation to the law of the land), and that people considered you untrustworthy or lesser because of your Christianity.
This is the world atheists live in. Christianity is the de-facto religion of the USA. Despite a wall of church-state separation, it infects our legal system, our public squares, and more.
Has your cited case ever happened?
Has anyone ever attacked or sued a student for bringing a bible to school? Not because the school handed out bibles, but because the student brought a bible to school? I can find one case where the school suspended a student for bringing a bible to school and preaching, but the school district alleged that he was being incredibly disruptive, and the ACLU, oddly enough, said that if the kid’s account was correct, his rights were being violated. Some anti-christian organization, huh?
It’s really not that hard. Private citizens can do what they want. They have freedom of religion. Part of that freedom is ensuring that the government doesn’t unfairly prop up one religion. So, with that knowledge, maybe you can fill out this quiz. You tell me, which one of these cases would be worth a lawsuit, and which wouldn’t.
- Student brings bible to school
- Student offers sermon on school ground during recess
- School district hires a Christian “motivational speaker” (read: Preacher) and makes attendance to his speech mandatory
- Student buys each member of his class a bible
- School district buys each member of a class a bible
- School district takes a trip to visit a baroque church nearby for art class
- School district takes a trip to visit an evangelical church nearby to receive sermons, and refuses to take a similar trip to a mosque when asked.
Think you’ve got your answers?
- No suit. Obviously a student exercising their right of free expression.
- No suit. See 1.
- Lawsuit. This is obviously and clearly spending state money to promote one specific religion. It’s also marginalizing anyone who isn’t a Christian and violating their religious freedom.
- No suit. See 1.
- Lawsuit. See 3.
- No suit. This has a clear non-religious purpose. It’s not propping up Christianity, it’s an art field trip.
- Lawsuit. The state is explicitly propping up Christianity while refusing the same trip to a different religion.
It’s not that hard.
Yeah. No kidding. And nobody is advocating that. It’s literally all about the government not handing out undue privileges to a specific sectarian religion. That’s it. That’s the whole story when it comes to these lawsuits.
Right, because we see it as a colossal waste of time. A massive number of people spend a fairly significant amount of time learning about an old, immoral religion, often being taught lessons which do not apply any more or which actively make society worse - or what did your church teach you about homosexuality? But it’s their freedom to do so, just like it’s our freedom to criticize them, or remind them that there are other options. I’d rather nobody went to church. I’d rather Christianity didn’t exist. It’s my right to say so. Even on a billboard. But I would never tell anyone, not even my own child, “No, you cannot go to Church”.
What a bizarre sidetrack. I think Dredd Scott was a terrible decision. I think that the “Lemon Test” currently used to ensure that the state is not propping up one religion above all others is a very useful and appropriate test. Look, it’s simple. The first amendment prevents any law with regards to an establishment of religion. The fourteenth amendment incorporates the amendments down to the state and local level. You cannot have the state propping up one religion above another. And when a school spends time and money to, say, take a class to visit a Christian religious ceremony, and then refuses to do the same for any other religion, it is, in effect, propping up Christianity above any other religion. This is why you can find satanist displays in places where the government puts up nativity scenes - legally, if the government offers public space to one religion, it has to offer public space to all religions.
ENOUGH with the “war on Christmas” hijack.
This has nothing to do with the reliability of Fox News.
If someone wants to promote the silly idea that there is a War on Christmas, (something even Bill O’Reilly finally admitted does not exist), go open a new thread.
[ /Moderating ]
Do you have a real cite for this? Your cite says that they pick and choose what to fact-check -
Regards,
Shodan
You can’t promote an “idea” which is a meaningless opinion, whether it’s a war, skirmish, or battle royale this can’t be proven or disproven, so as I rightfully pointed out it’s as silly as arguing over whether a glass is “half full” or “half empty”. So arguing that there “is a war on Christmas” is just as silly as arguing that there “isn’t one”, of course.
Regardless it can be factually pointed out that some secular groups do seem to be hung-up about Christmas enough to spend time and money which could be used to feed starving African children putting up ‘trollish’ billboards which read like bad internet memes - whether you want to call this a “war” or not is just potato potahto, and the fact that you feel the need to argue over mere words makes me wonder how much time you have on your hands.
As far as Fox’s reliability is concerned, since most of the arguments regarding this is just personal opinion from internet partisans on one side or the other, I attempted to bring some facts to the debate, and I’ll post it again.
According to Pew Research, MSNBC was founded to be the most biased cable news network, with Fox coming in second behind CNN:
Plus if we’re talking about the reliability of the reporting rather than the political commentary then pundits like Bill O’Reilly or Lawrence O’Donnell who are openly opinionated shouldn’t be brought into the discussion.
You are not accurately representing your cite. The analysis is the ratios of opinion-to-news, not opinion-masquerading-as-news.